I remembered that people of color from my region of the United States can choose to embrace all aspects of their ancestry, in the food they eat, in the music they listen to, in the stories they tell, while also choosing to war in one armor, that of black Americans, when they fight for racial equality. I remembered that in choosing to identify as black, to write about black characters in my fiction and to assert the humanity of black people in my nonfiction, I've remained true to my personal history, to my family history, to my political and moral choices, and to my essential self: a self that understands the world through the prism of being a black American, and stands in solidarity with the people of the African diaspora.

The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) is alarmed to see a societal resurgence of groups rejecting the value of genetic diversity and using discredited or distorted genetic concepts to bolster bogus claims of white supremacy. ASHG denounces this misuse of genetics to feed racist ideologies. In public dialog, our research community should be clear about genetic knowledge related to ancestry and genomic diversity. To that end, ASHG affirms the following:…

Earlier this year, National Geographic made headlines with its “Changing Face of America” article. The story explained that America was becoming more comfortable with interracial relationships, and as a result, the future would be made up of a group of people with features from multiple races. A new study has challenged this hypothesis and suggested that this “mixed race future” is already here. We just never realized it.

The study, published by Cell Press, found that there is quite a large difference in the race that people identify with and what they actually are. In a recent study, researchers analyzed the DNA of more than 160,000 Americans who had offered their saliva as part of the 23andMe project. What researchers found was surprising.

The study found that, as expected, people tended to identify with the race that made up the majority of their background. However, for many, this self-identification was not completely accurate. According to the press release, the team estimated that as many as six million Americans who identify as white from a European background carry African ancestry and as many as five million self-described European white Americans have Native American ancestry….

Over the past 500 years, North America has been the site of ongoing mixing of Native Americans, European settlers, and Africans (brought largely by the trans-Atlantic slave trade), shaping the early history of what became the United States. We studied the genetic ancestry of 5,269 self-described African Americans, 8,663 Latinos, and 148,789 European Americans who are 23andMe customers and show that the legacy of these historical interactions is visible in the genetic ancestry of present-day Americans. We document pervasive mixed ancestry and asymmetrical male and female ancestry contributions in all groups studied. We show that regional ancestry differences reflect historical events, such as early Spanish colonization, waves of immigration from many regions of Europe, and forced relocation of Native Americans within the US. This study sheds light on the fine-scale differences in ancestry within and across the United States and informs our understanding of the relationship between racial and ethnic identities and genetic ancestry.

GLASS AND Li (1953) have introduced a statistical model that allows calculations to be made, not only of the intermixture between two base populations but also of the dynamic pattern of the gene flow from one population to another, during a known period of intermixture. The formula derived from Glass and Li is:

qk – Q

(1 – m)k

=

—————

q0 – Q

To use this formula it is necessary to know: a) the gene frequencies, q0 and Q, of the base populations; b) the gene frequency, qk, of the hybrid population; and c) the number of generations, k, of contact between the base populations. The average rates of gene flow (m) from one population to another varies according to the assumed value of k and to the amount of accumulated admixture in the hybrid population. Some limitations of this method have been stressed by Glass and Li.

It should be of interest to compare the process of hybridization between Negro and White populations in Brazil to that in the United States, since the social conditions in the two countries have been and still are different. This is a first attempt to do so.

THE BRAZIL NEGRO

An important problem, which is not yet completely settled, is the African origin of Brazilian Negroes. The comparative ethnography of the Brazilian Negro was worked out, in its fundamental aspects, by the pioneer work of Nina Rodrigues (1932) and the later work of Ramos (1951a). The data on the relations between African and Brazilian cultural groups of Negroes shown in Table I result from these studies…

This brief monograph is a mixed blessing. On one hand it demonstrates what a wealth of metrical material has been collected on human hybrid populations, while on the other it presents methods of analysis which are both inefficient and ineptly applied.

In his preferatory note, Dr. L. S. Penrose points out that this work was done prior to the start of hostilities in 1939, but that the value of the data presented is timeless. This is very true, however the analysis made of the data is rapidly showing signs of age. The data are a compilation of published records of nine outstanding cases of biracial crossing; Hybrid American Negroes, Jamaican ‘Browns’, Half-Blood Sioux, Ojibwa-Whites, Yucatecans, Rehoboth Bastaards, Kisar Mestizos, Norfolk Islanders, and Anglo-Indians. The mean and standard error are recorded for stature and seven cranial measures for most of these populations. Additional measurements are noted for many. In each population studied the sample includes 25 or more adult (20 years or over) individuals of each sex. The values for each sex are recorded separately.

The mean of the hybrid population is compared with that of each of its propositus population groups by the use of Student’s t test. Unfortunately this test requires the assumption that the variances of the populations being compared be the same. Nowhere in the presentation is this recognized. It would have been eminently desirable to determine the significance of the variance ratio for each parameter for each pair of populations compared before the t test was applied. For cases of significant difference in variance between the populations the Fisher-Behrens method for the use of t with samples of unequal variance would be applicable.

The variability of the propositus and hybrid populations is considered separately by the method of Mourant in which the variance ratio of each character for each population pair is found and then the mean variance ratio for each pair determined. This analysis indicated that the variance of the hybrid population is greater, but was found, by a t test, to be significantly greater in only two cases. Here it would have seemed desirable to look up the values in a table of F to get a more powerful estimate of the difference between these populations.

The material presented in this monograph provides a good addition to the blood group, dermatoglyphic, and taster frequency data which are currently used in the analysis of population dynamics, and should serve to attract the attention of interested workers to this relatively undeveloped body of information.

J. C. HerionDepartment of MedicineUniversity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Triracial Isolates today attract the attention of the anthropologist, the geneticist, and the medical scientist as questions arise concerning the origin of such isolates, their history, social status, breeding structure, and inherited pathological conditions. This paper describes the physical, serological, and clinical characteristics of a hybrid population in northeastern North Carolina (Witkop et al., 1960; Menegaz-Bock, 1962), its racial composition, and the cultural and biological factors in its evolution.

History

The population can be traced at least as far back as the American Revolution. The most common surname in this region today is the same as that of two brothers, said to be descended from Cherokee Indians and whites, who fought in that war. The census of 1790 for the county in which the majority of this population now live lists this name only under the designation “all other free persons;” four of seven other surnames frequent in this population are listed as “free white,” while three are listed under both of these headings. Many of these names, well-known in the isolate today, can be traced through the census reports of the nineteenth century. In 1800, ten are listed, mostly under “free persons of color,” and the census of 1810 lists six of these as “other free persons except Indians not taxed.” By 1820, most of these names appear in the column “free Negro.” Eleven surnames common in the current population are listed in the census of 1830 as “free colored persons,” and most of these are listed under the same heading again in 1840. The census of 1850, designating free inhabitants as “white,” “black,” and “mulatto,” registers a dozen of these family names as “mulattoes” and half of these also as “white.” In 1860, the census for the western district of the county listed 13 of the common names as free inhabitants, either white, black, or mulatto. In the 1870 census for the township where most of the population now lives, five of seven last names common in the group include mulattoes. The census of 1880 contains ten names common in the township now, and all but two of these are to be found under “mulatto.” The census of 1890 was destroyed, and names are not released for the censuses from 1900 on…